The fear about Iyiola Omisore inside APC is repeated often: that he is too independent-minded, difficult to control for both Bisi Akande and Gboyega Oyetola. The assumption is that he moves on his own, that he brings a machine the party cannot command, and that his PDP background makes him unreliable. That fear is unfounded. Omisore’s independence is not insubordination; it is competence under pressure. He delivered Ife and the 2018 rerun when APC had no other path in Osun. As National Secretary he worked within the party’s structure and understood the opposition’s playbook better than most. The problem has never been that Omisore is hard to control. The problem is that APC often refuses to lead men who can win, then complains when they win without permission.
Together, the three illustrate APC’s central contradiction. Akande provides the legitimacy. Oyetola provides the governance face. Omisore provides the electoral infantry. When the three align, as they did in 2015 and 2019, the Southwest delivers and APC looks hegemonic. When they pull apart, as they did in Osun 2022, the party bleeds from its base. The lesson is not that APC needs saints. It is that it needs a balance. Akande without Omisore gives you elders with no army. Omisore without Akande gives you an army with no cause. Oyetola without either gives you a commissioner trying to win a war.
As a human being, both Akande and Oyetola have their pluses and minuses too. Akande’s minus is the scar of 1999 to 2003. The mass sacking of civil servants under verification exercises turned the bureaucracy against him and gave PDP a line of attack that still works. His plus is that he was an outstanding performer who chose fiscal discipline over cheap popularity, blocked leakages, avoided reckless borrowing, and entrenched due process when it was unfashionable. That legacy is why he remains the party’s moral validator. He can calm elders and traditional institutions with one meeting, but only if APC owns his record instead of running from it.
Oyetola’s minus is the perception of lethargic performance. From 2018 to 2022, critics said he governed like an accountant. Projects were slow, his politics was quiet, and the grassroots felt unfunded. That gap is what Adeleke exploited in 2022. His plus is the record. Oyetola paid full salaries when other states rationed pay, serviced inherited loans, reduced domestic debt, and stabilized the state economy despite lean allocations and COVID-19. He cleared pension arrears in tranches. To technocrats he was the adult in the room. As Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, that same divide follows him. If the gains stay on paper, the lethargy label sticks. If ports, waterways, and coastal jobs become visible, prudence becomes a campaign weapon.
Omisore’s plus is obvious and often downplayed. He has deep private and public experience, from engineering to the Senate. He understands how PDP thinks because he once ran its machine. He knows how to fight and win in hostile LGAs without waiting for Abuja memos. His minus, in the eyes of the party, is the very independence that makes him effective. But that is a leadership problem, not a loyalty problem. Give him a clear mandate and he delivers. Leave him undefined and he will define the task himself.
Here is the point the party must state plainly: both Akande and Oyetola have their pluses and minuses too, but the synergy of their pluses with that of Omisore could deliver the victory for the party and remove the incumbent. Akande’s legitimacy removes the trust deficit. Oyetola’s governance record answers the question of competence. Omisore’s infantry converts both into votes on the ground. None of the three can do it alone. Akande’s name without Omisore’s structure is nostalgia. Oyetola’s balance sheet without Omisore’s mobilization is a seminar. Omisore’s army without Akande’s blessing is a campaign that looks rootless.
The benefits of synergy are immediate. Akande calls the elders home and neutralizes the “APC is anti-worker” narrative by framing his 1999 decisions as the foundation for today’s fiscal sanity. Oyetola points to full salaries, debt reduction, and blue-economy projects that touch Osun traders, fishermen, and artisans. Omisore takes both messages to the wards, secures Ife, splits PDP’s strongholds, and protects the vote on election day. That is how you beat an incumbent. Not with press statements, but with legitimacy, results, and a ground force moving in one direction.
APC lost Osun in 2022 because the three pillars distrusted one another. The party can lose again in 2026 if it repeats the mistake. Or it can admit, as a human being, that Akande and Oyetola have flaws but their strengths, combined with Omisore’s, are enough to win. Synergy is not sentiment. It is strategy. Use it, and the Southwest returns to the column. Ignore it, and the party will watch elders without an army, an army without a cause, and a commissioner without either, all explaining another defeat.
